Such an amazing day yesterday.
It felt incredible to be standing with my colleagues and finally hear our voices resonate across the country.
It was long overdue.
For far too long we have felt silenced.
I thought I would post my speech from the rally which sums up my feelings about the situation….
When it was announced by government two weeks ago that 900 000 public sector workers would be receiving a pay rise for their efforts in fighting covid, although devastatingly disrespectful that most NHS workers were excluded, I can’t say I was all that surprised.
This feeling of being undervalued and unrewarded for our efforts is nothing new in our profession, but it seems this latest kick to the teeth was a step too far. Within a couple of weeks of the announcement frontline staff had organised themselves to form a group of 75,000 members, who all felt it was time our voice was heard. Yesterday thousands are marched across the country, I’m so proud that Cov played its part in spreading this message.
Save the NHS.
Before COVID we were already on our knees.
I left my role in A&E because it made me suicidal. Chronically understaffed, underfunded and under resourced, it felt at times that I was wading against treacle to get one small task done. The major issue was safety – being the lone nurse in the corridor nursing 15+ patients or in resus with 3 acutely unwell patients when it should have been 121 care. After 5 years being qualified, being deemed senior enough to co ordinate the department, lead during resus situations etc.
I was earning £12.50 an hour.
Before tax and after our generous pay deal.
For Matt and Boris to use the 3 year pay deal as justification for our exclusion is disgraceful.
Not only does it imply we’re ungrateful and greedy, but it perpetuates the lie that the pay deal was in any way beneficial to most NHS staff. It was proved to be so misleading that after it came into force in 2018 - one of the RCN chiefs resigned.
The 3 year deal was geared around recruiting newly qualified staff, no reward for experience. Those highest in their banding will be receiving around a 1.6% increase this year, there is absolutely no value placed on skills or loyalty. Looking at our pay in real terms we are 20% worse off than we were a decade ago, yet responsibility, workload and complexity of our role has increased. Changes to the increments also means we progress up the banding slower.
Is it any wonder that there are currently over 100,000 vacancies in the NHS?
Would you want to be working in ITU, sweating in PPE, risking your own life, to save others - for £12 an hour and little scope for progression?
So our leaders argument for our exclusion from pay rises which apparently reward key workers during covid, is that we have a pay rise that was given to us before Covid.
Yet they are still awarding themselves their 8th pay rise in a decade this year - which has consistently been in line with or above inflation.
MPs also gave themselves a £10k cheeky bonus to help adjust to COVID working and spaff tens of thousands of pounds a year up the wall on expenses. All whilst we queued at stupid o‘clock so we could get our shopping around our shifts. Made aprons out of bin bags cause they couldn’t procure PPE and asked school kids to make visors with the 3D printers they’d had for Christmas because the government were wasting millions on contracting their mates companies to produce equipment that never materialised.
It is absolutely shameful.
Since starting my new role 5 months ago I have worked on 7 different wards, like many others I stepped out of my specialty and did what was asked of me. We faced so many new challenges and stepped up because we knew nobody else would, or could. It was our duty, we were and still are proud to have been able to help. It felt like we were at war, so despite the lack of protection or respect from our leaders, we cracked on.
Although we are far from free of COVID, the dust has begun to settle, the claps have stopped and we have collectively taken a breath. Yet Key Workers haven’t had a chance to stop, although I was off sick for a while before starting this role, my poor colleagues have been battling relentlessly long before Covid. They are exhausted. We still are forced to work in an environment that doesn’t allow us to care, treading water in a chronically understaffed and underfunded system. There are still 100,000 vacancies, there is still no funding, more services have been cut or privatised and it will soon be winter. We are still drowning.
The bottom line is that without enough staff the NHS is unsafe, if you don’t start recognising that our skills deserve decent pay then the haemorrhaging of experienced staff will continue.
We are tired of being forgotten. If you clapped on your doorstep every week to thank us, we need you to stand with us now to save us.
Fair pay for ALL NHS staff.